Facebook is eliminating 17 organic post types that Pages can convert into ads as it looks to make the actual business results of its ads more precise.
Up until now, brands have been able to take any post published to their Pages and amplify its reach by paying Facebook to promote it as an ad in people’s news feeds. That won’t be the case for much longer as Facebook continues to orient its ad product around delivering actual business results, as opposed to simple social engagement, which was something that COO Sheryl Sandberg emphasized repeatedly during the company’s most recent earnings call.
“We want businesses to utilize Facebook ad products that give them the best opportunity to achieve their business goals, and removing these inessential boosting options will reduce complexity and help them find the right products to get the best results,” said Facebook product manager Jyotika Prasad in an emailed statement.
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The following Facebook promoted post types will be retired as of September 15, 2017.
Any ads purchased by Page owners before September 15 that boost these types of posts will stop running after September 29.
- Boosting share of products from shops
- Boosting the share of a story about a for-sale post
- Boosting a check-in on a map, at a restaurant, or in a city
- Boosting the share of a note
- Boosting the share of a poll
- Boosting place recommendations
- Boosting the share of cultural moments
- Boosting the share of comments
- Boosting change of a Profile picture
- Boosting a file upload or share
- Boosting a sports event
- Boosting of a video or image uploaded through the Facebook camera
- Boosting of attendance for an event
- Boosting the share of a video playlist
- Boosting the status of watching a television show, movie, or other types of programming
- Boosting a post from a third-party app posted to a Page’s timeline
- Boosting a political endorsement
“We want to help advertisers drive business outcomes while providing people with the most engaging experiences possible, and our ads ecosystem will continue to evolve to meet these objectives. Advertisers rarely promoted these post types, and when they did, results were not as strong as results with our more popular ad formats,” according to a Facebook blog post announcing the change.
Are you using any of these page post types in your Facebook ads strategy?
It’s a fact that Facebook can be very confusing and if you’re new, you may not know what to even do at this point. Take the guesswork out of Facebook by committing to a social media strategy that works for you.
When you’ve got a written social media strategy in place, changes like these don’t rock your world. In fact, they can be leveraged to inspire new and unique approaches to engage your customers on Facebook.
A winning social media strategy keeps your brand in the conversation and doesn’t allow malcontents and competitors to speak for you.
Don’t run scared. Get savvy.